Iran on Saturday opened the gates to a key uranium conversion facility to visiting diplomats and journalists in an effort to show that its disputed nuclear program is peaceful and not a cover for nuclear bomb making. The visit to the Isfahan plant in central Iran was the first such tour since Iran resumed uranium conversion in August 2005. The U.N. Security Council slapped economic sanctions on Iran on Dec. 23 over the country's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which can be used for making weapons. The visit also came ahead of a U.N. deadline for Iran to stop the enrichment. If Tehran doesn't comply by the end of the 60-day period stipulated by the U.N., the Security Council will consider new measures beyond the economic sanctions. The United States and several of its Western allies believe that Iran is using the nuclear program to produce an atomic weapon — charges Iran denies, saying its aim is to generate electricity.... http://www.foxnews.com

Officials confirmed Saturday that the H5N1 strain of bird flu had been found in turkeys on a commercial farm Britain's first mass outbreak of the disease that has ravaged Asia's poultry stocks and killed more than 160 people worldwide. The virus strain that killed about 2,500 turkeys on the British poultry farm was identified as the highly pathogenic Asian strain, similar to a virus found in Hungary in January, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said. It was the first time the deadly H5N1 strain was found on a British farm. Also on Saturday, the World Heath Organization confirmed Nigeria's first human death from the strain. Nigerian health officials on Wednesday said several people had apparently contracted the virus, including a young woman who later died. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2847346

BRITAIN broke a United Nations treaty banning the use of child soldiers by sending underage troops - including 17-year-old girls - to Iraq, it has been revealed. The Ministry of Defence has admitted that army commanders were put under pressure by successive deployments to Iraq and as a result broke international rules by sending soldiers who had not yet reached their 18th birthday. The revelation is likely to reignite debate about the armed forces' recruitment of those young enough to be at school. Britain in 2003 ratified the UN's Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. The treaty obliges signatories to take "all feasible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities". But the MoD has now admitted that during the first two years of the war in Iraq, 15 British service personnel aged 17 served in the country. As many as ...http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=180532007

A muchanticipated US intelligence report warned yesterday that the rising violence in Iraq could permanently tear the country apart and, in the worst case, create a state of anarchy with no legitimate authority that combines "extreme ethnosectarian violence with debilitating intragroup clashes." The secret National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, the first in more than two years, said Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence now far outpaces the anti-US insurgency, according to an unclassified summary. It said there is only a fleeting opportunity over the next 12 to 18 months for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and US forces to secure the population and craft a viable political settlement. But all the efforts of US and Iraqi authorities could rapidly collapse following another "triggering" event like the Sunni attack on a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in February 2006 that set off the current cycle of sectarian violence, according to the published excerpts of the 90-page report. ...http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/02/03/report_says_iraq_could_be_torn_apart/

The swimming bag hit the car floor with a thump and my son hit the car seat with an even bigger thump, grumbling: "What's the point?" His primary school had just lost a swimming competition, largely because their head teacher had picked a team on the basis of enthusiasm rather than ability. To paraphrase that old cliche, it wasn't the winning that mattered, it was the taking part. Well, I'm sorry, but in the real world life is full of winners and losers. And right now, the losers are a generation of boys who have been betrayed by an education system that no longer recognises crucial differences between the sexes. ...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=432947&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

The release on Friday of portions of a bleak new National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s future left the White House and its opponents vying over whether its findings buttressed their vastly different views about how to arrest the worsening sectarian chaos there. The assessment, by American intelligence agencies, expressed deep doubts about the abilities of Iraqi politicians to hold together an increasingly balkanized country, and about whether Iraqi troops might be able to confront powerful militias over the next 18 months and assume more responsibility for security. The analysis, the first such estimate on Iraq in more than two years, described in sober language a rapidly unraveling country in which security has worsened despite four years of efforts by the administration. President Bush acknowledged last month that his strategy had failed so far....http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/world/middleeast/03intel.html?ei=5094&en=9815cf3f29e620dc&hp=&ex=1170565200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print